Mark Bustos, a professional stylist with a celebrity clientele, spends most Sundays providing free haircuts to homeless people in New York City. He writes on Instagram:
“Many people ask me how they can ‘team up’ with me to #BeAwesomeToSomebody. My answer is plain and simple. Just go out and do it.”

How do you use what you have to help others? Have you ever donated your time, talents, possessions or money to support anyone in need?

David Terry is 50 years old, H.I.V. positive and homeless. He spends his nights at Bailey House, a nonprofit in Harlem that provides housing for people living with H.I.V., and his days wandering the streets. “I get very depressed because it’s
like I’m on the treadmill going 80 miles an hour with the brakes on,” he said.

But for one hour the other Sunday, life slowed down to a happy pace. Sitting on a park bench on the corner of East Houston and Chrystie Streets, Mr. Terry was getting a haircut from Mark Bustos, a professional stylist
with a celebrity clientele.

“Can you believe this is happening?” Mr. Terry said, a white bib wrapped around his neck, cigarette in hand and Stevie Wonder’s “Conversation Peace” playing in the background.
An hour later, he looked in the mirror, and saw that his messy mop was now a stylish flattop. “Yeah, baby, I’ve still got it,” he said, striking a victory pose. “I’m the king
of the world.”

Every Sunday, Mark Bustos, 30, a hairstylist at Three Squares Studios, an elite salon in Chelsea that charges $150 to clients like Norah Jones, Marc Jacobs and Phillip Lim, hits the sidewalk and provides free cuts
to the homeless.

Mr. Bustos often wanders around Union Square, the Lower East Side and Midtown, where he has gotten to know some of the homeless by name. “See that guy over there,” he said, walking down the Bowery.
“That’s Cowboy Ritchie,” whose wife, Mr. Bustos added, “wants him to shave his beard off because it looks too good and the other women flirt with him.”

Other times, Mr. Bustos meets his unsuspecting new clients through friends and paying clients, who tell him about people in their neighborhoods. He does up to 10 haircuts a day.

He started offering haircuts to the homeless two years ago. The idea, he says, is to simply give back. “Whether I’m giving one at work or on the street, I think we can all relate to the haircut and
how it makes us feel,” Mr. Bustos said. “We all know what it feels like to get a good haircut.”

Students: Read the entire essay, then tell us …

— How do you use what you have to help others? Have you ever donated your time, talents, possessions or money to support anyone in need?

— How did it make you feel? Do you think the recipient of your giving appreciated your donation?

— Do you hope to help others in need when you get older?

— Do you think a free professional haircut is something valuable to donate to a homeless person? Why?

Students 13 and older are invited to comment below. Please use only your first name. For privacy policy reasons,
we will not publish student comments that include a last name.

This guy spends his money, Time, and passion to give homeless people haircuts. He knows that they can’t afford a haircut and he feels like he most help them. Many people ask how they can help and all he say
is what ever you can help with go ahead and help

From my personal experiences, I have helped those in needs many times before. Whether it is community service, donating money to a charity, or throwing a homeless man a few bucks on a sidewalk in New York City.
The act of giving to someone/something is a great action, that many people seem to ignore. Have you ever heard of a man giving away free haircuts to the poor? It seems to be uncommon, mainly because people are
too lazy and unmotivated to do so. If a person were to ask, “Go and cut hair for free”…. the response might be “What’s in it for me”. What people are missing is that
giving back to the community is your benefit. In my past, I have participated in numerous community service events to help those in need. After doing these things, I began to feel good about myself, and I started
to realize that you do not have to be paid in order to work or be happy. Of course you need to get paid to make a living, however, specific events like these are what creates smiles on plenty of faces. If you
ask me, it was worth it. When I get older, I hope to keep participating in social events that help people that are in desperate need. On the other hand, a professional haircut that is free for homeless people
is just as valuable. People do not realize the struggles that homeless people go through every single day. A single haircut can change their mood and give them something to look forward to. Whoever created this
free haircut idea is somebody who knows that giving back to his/her community is more than valuable.

Every year around Christmas time, my family and I do operation Christmas child. Operation Christmas child is when you pick a gender and age group and make a box of toys, health related things, etc. Then they send
the boxes to kids who don’t have anything. I personally love doing this and it makes me feel great. Doing something for other people who are less fortunate makes me feel proud. I would love to do this
when I’m older and even do other things, like work in a soup kitchen or food drives. I think this is a great thing to do for homeless people. Homeless people don’t have the money to get haircuts
and for this guy to go out at give free ones, I think that’s amazing.

When I was in New York City my mom and I saw a homeless man on the side of the road, and he was bare foot. We went up to the man and asked him his shoe size, he replied with a very happy voice,” I’m
a size 13!” So we went around the corner to a shoe store and bought long warm socks and a pair of $50 shoes. After doing this both my mom and I felt very good and for the small price that we had to play
it was worth it. The homeless man seemed to be very happy and had a very big smile on his face. Doing this for a person in need felt great and I hope I get the chance to do it again in the future. In my opinion
a free haircut could change a homeless man’s life, just a haircut could get him enough confidence to just do something simple like just go apply for a job that he could make money.

1. Since i read a lot, use my knowledge to remind people. I do when I get the chance but then I don’t do it often. 2. It feels SOOOO GODDAMN good. something worth doing and something to live for. 3. Yes I have decided this a long time ago. 4. Yes because that’s what he could do. My motto is do your best and by that I mean do whatever you can.

I believe that giving haircuts to the homeless, as Mark Bustos does, is something that is definitely valuable to donate to the homeless. A professional haircut makes the homeless feel good about how they look and
some of the homeless may even become motivated to find a job that meets the standards of the professional haircut. Although this donation is not monetary, it shows the homeless that people do care about them
and are trying to help them even when they, themselves, do not directly ask for it. Most hairstylists talk to their clients when they do their hair and I am sure that this is what happens when Mark gives the
homeless haircuts, showing them that someone is listening. I have volunteered in many different ways for various organizations whether it is to help the elderly or to feed the less fortunate. Doing this has
always made me feel like I can help give back to the community with my volunteer work and it makes me proud that I can do this work without wanted anything in return. I do believe that the people appreciated
that I gave my time to them. Over the summer I volunteered at an elderly home by hosting games for them to entertain them, which made me realize that there are other things I can do to help those in need. Each
day that I volunteered the elders would always thank me for their time and tell me to come back soon. This really made me realize that what I did made a difference to them. As i get older I do hope that I can
continue doing volunteer work and hope to volunteer more than I am doing because i know that it will benefit someone or even multiple people even if it does not benefit me.

I believe that Mark Bustos is an incredibly kind and caring person just based on what I read in the article. For someone that makes a whole lot of money off of styling the hair of the rich and famous, he doesn’t
let that get to his head. You can tell that he knows he is still just another person on this planet and working for famous people doesn’t make him any higher than others. He is well off with the work
he does and makes a ton of money per haircut, but he is still willing to give free haircuts to the less fortunate. I think this makes him higher and more mighty than so many people just because of his simple
acts of kindness. I cannot compare my work to anything as impacting as Bustos, but I have devoted time in my life to help people. As a Girl Scout, I have visited Senior Centers to spend the day with the elderly
and make them not feel alone in their facilities, I have set up a carnival for special needs kids at four different learning centers and hospitals, I have sat outside of grocery stores to raise money and food
for meals on wheels, and I made adoption bags/care kits for animals at Hi Tor Animal Shelter for when they are ready to be taken home by someone. I agree with Mark Bustos that doing things for others not only
give them happiness and confidence, but it gives you happiness and confidence too knowing that you made a difference. Whether it changes only an hour, a day, or months out of their life, you still made an impact
at one point and there is no better feeling out there.

I believe that Mark Bustos is an incredibly caring person just based on what I read in the article. For someone that makes a whole lot of money off of styling the hair of the rich and famous, he doesn’t let
that get to his head. You can tell that he knows he is still just another person on this planet and working for famous people doesn’t make him any higher than others. He is well off with the work he does
and makes a ton of money per haircut, but he is still willing to give free haircuts to the less fortunate. I think this makes him higher and more mighty than so many people just because of his simple acts of
kindness. I cannot compare my work to anything as impacting as Bustos, but I have devoted time in my life to help people. As a Girl Scout, I have visited Senior Centers to spend the day with the elderly and
make them not feel alone in their facilities, I have set up a carnival for special needs kids at four different learning centers and hospitals, I have sat outside of grocery stores to raise money and food for
meals on wheels, and I made adoption bags/care kits for animals at Hi Tor Animal Shelter for when they are ready to be taken home by someone. I agree with Mark Bustos that doing things for others not only give
them happiness and confidence, but it gives you happiness and confidence too knowing that you made a difference. Whether it changes only an hour, a day, or months out of their life, you still made an impact
at one point and there is no better feeling out there.

I use anything i can to help support others. For example, most holiday seasons i go to any department/retail store and buy basic foods like bread, meat, cheese, yogurt, water, and a little dessert. After that, i
go home and make sandwiches and put together 10-15 lunches in a paper bag and i go around giving them to homeless people and have conversations with them. It was the best feeling in the world to see them smile
and see the appreciation in their eyes; it’s just a heart-warming feeling. Another example would be on April 20th, 2013 when I did St. Baldricks with my dad. I gave Melissa, a young girl with cancer,
new hair for her to brush in the morning and to mess with and try different hairdos, and the thank you’s, smiles, and pictures i got put me to tears with happiness. Being a 16 year old girl in high
school, I’m also part of Beta Club, a club for people who want to volunteer. I’ve spent my time volunteering at soup kitchens, school sporting events, school craft-making for awards, tutoring younger
kids, and other events. I loved doing every single one of these things and i will continue to do them. I know that as i get older, helping others will be easier for me in means of money, transportation,
and understanding of peoples’ need for assistance, so i already know i will be helping others. Who doesn’t like the warm, tingly feeling you get when you do something nice? I think that a free
professional haircut is something extremely valuable to a homeless person because it shows that not all people in the world view them as helpless bums and actually have a heart. It’s something they may
never have gotten and may never get again, which makes it even more special. When someone does something extremely nice for nothing in return, doesn’t that make you smile? And doesn’t it make you
value that moment? I’m sure the homeless people feel the same way- happy and appreciative.